I don’t know much about Archos, a French company that makes e-readers and tablets, but I do know that its CEO Henri Crohas is delusional when it comes to robots. In a recent interview, Henri states that his company aspires to build a child-sized robot that would be sold for less than 300 Euros.

Now, just because he said “child-sized” does not necessarily mean the robot would be humanoid. Certainly not, in fact, because to build a humanoid at that scale would require at least around a dozen servo motors, each priced in the hundreds of dollars. Even Takara-Tomy’s I-Sobot was sold for $350 USD, and it was only 16.5cm (6.5″) tall. So it’s safe to assume he is probably talking about a telepresence robot that moves on wheels, something like the Anybots QB or the Gostai Jazz Connect.

However, we’re slightly skeptical about his target price given that the cheapest telepresence robots to date are RoboDynamics’ Luna and the Russian R.Bot 100, both of which cost around $3,000 USD (2,240 Euros). I’m not saying they won’t get any cheaper, but I’d be surprised if they dropped much below $1,000.

It would certainly be interesting to see exactly what he has in mind – maybe it would be built out of cardboard, or perhaps it’s one of these new-fangled inflatables?

Posted
2011.12.08 at 00:10 under ROBOTS.
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alex

well building a telepresence robot for 300 USD shoudn’t be such a problem, it’s just a webcam with a monitor on wheels, but selling such robot for 300 USD and expecting to earn money with it, that would be the problem